Taken by Storm (31 page)

“I am in your debt, Mr. Lord, for safely conveying my lovely Ariadne to me,” she heard Maxwell saying, and the casual, cultured tone of his voice finally invaded her shock. Feeling flooded back into her, and she managed to rise to her feet.

“H-he’s a . . . doctor,” she heard herself say.

“Yes, of course,” Maxwell murmured dismissively, and his eyes flickered over the veterinarian, giving away nothing. “Would you care to see the fabulous Black Patrick before you take your leave,
Mr.
Lord? The syndicate that owns him has stabled him here, in the hopes of breeding some of my fine mares to him. Surely you have heard of this wonderful horse? He is unbeaten, the fastest steed to hit an English turf since Eclipse.” The earl reached out and cupped Ariadne’s elbow, drawing her away from Colin. “Come, my dear—”

Colin had had enough. “I have something to say to the lady before you draw her away.”

“Mr. Lord, she is my betrothed. Anything you have to say to her can be said in front of me.”

“As you wish, then.”

Maxwell stared at him with malice. Colin returned the look unflinchingly, then stepped toward Ariadne. The cheque lay like a diseased thing between his thumb and forefinger, making him want to shudder with disgust. Still holding Maxwell’s gaze, he tore it neatly in half, balled the two halves in his fist, and tossed them into the fire.

Maxwell raised both brows.

Ariadne gaped, her eyes huge in her suddenly white face.

And Colin moved toward her, trying not to limp, and took her cold hand firmly in his own. It was not the way he had intended to propose, it was not even appropriate in manner, circumstance, or style—but desperate situations call for desperate measures, and he had no choice in the matter.

“Lady Ariadne—what I tried to say earlier—will you marry me?”

Her mouth opened and for one terrible moment he thought she was going to refuse him. She glanced at Maxwell, standing calmly beside the fire, his one eye as black as Hades, the other chilling in its opacity. She gave the tiniest of nods—and then threw herself into Colin’s arms, her body shaking with relief.

She clung to him, and Colin looked up to see Maxwell staring at him with monstrous fury.

“I should call you out for this, Mr. Lord.”

The fire crackled in the hearth.
Snap.
Fizz.
A thump of a falling log, and then a shower of falling sparks.

Colin drew Ariadne beside him. “Pistols or swords?” he asked, mildly.

“Oh, I shouldn’t think it would matter to you,
Captain
. I daresay you’re quite skilled with both, are you not?”

Captain
? Confused, Ariadne stared at the two men. What on earth was Maxwell talking about? Then she realized just what was happening, and horror swept through her.

“I will
not
have the two of you fighting like little boys over me!” she cried, stepping between them and glaring at them both in turn. “Colin, I give you my answer:
yes
. Maxwell, I give you my explanation: Dr. Lord and I have fallen in love. I cannot marry you when my heart belongs to another.”

She saw fury darkening the earl’s face, a faint quivering about his aristocratic nostrils. He stared at her—then turned his back and walked toward the fire, there to stand silently.

Ariadne’s heart was too soft to tolerate the fact that she had just injured another so severely. She stared up at the back of Maxwell’s dark, handsome head, the fringe of perfectly styled hair just touching his collar, the broad span of his shoulders beneath his coat. Maxwell was a proud man. She had just cut him deeply—and unforgivably. The least she could do was offer an explanation to this man she was supposed to have married.

Embarrassed, and feeling small and mean, she turned to Colin and took his hands in her own.

“Will you allow me a few moments to explain our situation to Maxwell . . . in private?” she asked, silently pleading for him to understand.

She saw the uncertainty and distrust in his perceptive eyes, the hesitation etched in his features.

“Please, Colin?” She squeezed his fingers. “Just a moment?”

The earl remained standing at the fire, his back turned toward them and the burned, blackened bits that had been the cheque curling at his feet.

Colin pursed his lips and she could see the inner battle he was waging. He gave Ariadne a long, searching glance, and reached up to touch her cheek—then, without another word, he nodded and walked toward the door.

Her hands clammy, she anxiously watched him close the door behind him. And then she turned and found herself staring into the cold eyes of Clive, Lord Maxwell.

A mere hour and a half after Maxwell’s boarhounds had flung themselves at the big iron gates, another traveler appeared there, tired, hungry—and desperate.

Tristan, the new Lord Weybourne.

Splattered with mud, his fine clothes rumpled and dusty, the young earl sat astride his mare while the gatekeeper, holding the two growling dogs, opened the gate. Thank God for the darkness that hid his shaking hands, the sure pallor of his face. Carefully, he schooled his features into an expression of impatience and boredom, though his heart was thundering in his chest and his hands were sweating.

“My sister, the Lady Ariadne,” he began, glancing down at the fresh hoofprints that cut the road up beneath him. “I have reason to believe that she is here.”

“Yes, her ladyship arrived tonight,” the gatekeeper said, straining to hold the boarhounds’ collars and letting his gaze rake flatly over Tristan. “In fact, she is probably with my lord right now, as we speak.”

Tristan shuddered. “I must see her. Immediately.”

“Of course. Right this way, my lord,” the gatekeeper murmured, managing to raise his flat, hard voice over the vicious barking and growling of the boarhounds. He eyed Tristan coolly. “His lordship is . . .
expecting
you.”

Cold sweat broke out on Tristan’s brow. He felt the customary prickle of fear threading its way up his spine at thought of confronting Maxwell, and his arms and hands went suddenly numb.
Think of Ariadne.
He urged the mare forward, and she shot nervously past the open gate.

He sent her into a gallop and flying down the long drive. Far ahead in the distance he saw the great stone manor house, black and foreboding against the night sky, its windows blazing with light.

Terror swept through him and he leaned low over the mare’s neck, urging her faster and faster.

Ariadne was in there.

Dear God, don’t let me be too late
.

# # #

“Really, my dear . . . you never fail to shock and surprise me.”

Ariadne swallowed hard, suddenly, inexplicably, afraid. She gazed up into Maxwell’s saturnine face, but she could read nothing there; the pain she had seen earlier was gone, replaced with a look of bored indifference, and only the tightness of his words and the way his hand clenched and unclenched the poker belied the sense of betrayal and rage he must surely feel.

Still holding the poker, he began a slow, studied walk, back and forth before the great marble hearth. The fire’s light glowed eerily against his hair, the harsh planes of his face, the eyes that suddenly seemed bottomless and empty. The butler came in, was ushered back toward the door by the earl, who muttered something under his breath; then Maxwell turned and regarded Ariadne.

“You are throwing away your father’s dream, you know, with your insistence upon marrying this—this rabble,” he said, noncommittally, with a glance at the door through which the butler had gone. “You are one of the wealthiest women in England. Do you think that a lowly animal doctor would really want you for your
looks
?”

That stung. “I should hope my
looks
are at least equal to my financial status, my lord,” she replied coolly. “And as for my inheritance, I think it’s obvious that
Doctor
Lord has no interest whatsoever in my money.”

“Oh, yes, I’m sure he does not. Perhaps it is your horse that he wants then, eh?”

“Really, sir, I am trying to explain my feelings as a sane and rational adult. Please do not make this any more difficult for me than it already is.”

He glanced at her, his eyes raking disapprovingly over her mud-splattered clothes, her ungloved hands, her loose and tangled hair. She felt suddenly unclean and barbaric.

“Difficult,” he murmured, softly. “Here I have been worried sick about you while the whole countryside has been up in arms trying to hunt you down. You show up here looking like you just crawled out of a pasture, proclaim your love for another man, and do not expect me to be upset?”

“I had no intention of falling in love with Colin Lord. I sought him out because I needed an escort and someone to look after Shareb-er-rehh’s welfare. . . .”

“And?”

“Well . . . things just rather—happened, I guess.” She felt her face flaming red, and the way Maxwell was looking at her made her feel suddenly foolish and ridiculous.

An urgent knock sounded on the door. Trailing off, Ariadne watched as the earl, carrying the poker behind his back like a whip, strode across the room to open it. The butler stood there, his face expressionless. He glanced at Ariadne, and then lowered his voice, murmuring something that she could not catch. Maxwell answered him, his words equally unintelligible.

“Thank you, Mr. Critchley,” the earl murmured, and closing the door after the butler, turned to Ariadne. His eyes glinted, and a slow, triumphant smile began to curve his mouth.

“It would seem, my dear, that your affections for Mr. Lord are rather one-sided,” he drawled, running his fingers almost lovingly over the poker.

“What are you talking about?”

“I left a check for fifteen-thousand pounds with Mr. Critchley in the hope of buying your beloved veterinarian off with it,” he said smoothly.

Her fists clenched behind her back. “And?”

“It seems, my lady, that he has taken the money and run.”

# # #

Colin had not run.

In the darkened stable where Shareb-er-rehh and Thunder had been brought, he sat in the straw at the old gelding’s feet, leaning his back against the animal’s stout foreleg and cradling Bow in his lap. Although his hand ran rhythmically, soothingly, over the little dog’s fur, she was trembling madly, her sclera white and framing huge, frightened irises.

Five more minutes, Ariadne
, he thought, pulling out his watch. He gazed impatiently out the open door and toward the manor house.
Five more minutes, and I’m coming in after you.

Bow trembled harder, almost nearing convulsions.

“Poor little dog,” he murmured, gently stroking her ears. “Still not quite recovered from the terrible scare those boarhounds gave you, are you?”

Bow whined and tried to bury her whiskery face in the crook of his elbow. Nearby, Marc was sniffing in the straw, but now, the gun dog sighed and wandered over to Colin, licked his face once, and settled down against his bad leg, as though he knew it was troubling him and sought to relieve the pain. Something touched his hair and Colin looked up to see Thunder’s muzzle there, velvety and smooth. The gelding blew softly through his nose, then lifted his head to regard Shareb-er-rehh.

Colin followed his gaze.

The mighty stallion stood tensely in his private box, ears pricked forward, black forelock falling rakishly over one eye, nostrils flaring wide and red. He was staring out the window and toward the great manor house. Every muscle in his body was rigid, and his sleek coat was dark with nervous sweat.

A tickle of foreboding swept through Colin. Something was not right. . . .

Suddenly, Shareb flattened his ears, his eyes glowing savagely in the moonlight.

“What is it, boy?”

Gently putting Bow on the straw beside him, Colin got to his feet. He brushed pieces of hay from his breeches, pocketed his spectacles, and approaching the stallion, ran his hand calmingly over the powerful hindquarters, the sleek ribs, the sharply angled shoulder and crested neck as he peered out the window to follow Shareb’s intent gaze.

There, walking stiffly across the drive and toward the stable, was Maxwell’s butler, a thin, crook-nosed man with a ring of pale hair encircling his skull. He stopped halfway across the little courtyard and waited while two stable hands melted out of the darkness and joined him.

Shareb began to blow and snort. One hoof struck angrily out at the wall and his squeal pierced the night.

Frowning, Colin watched as the butler punctuated words he could not hear with urgent gestures toward the stable, the manor house, the flat, Norfolk pastures that rolled away behind the stables. But Shareb must have heard them, maybe even understood them, for his squeal became a high-pitched sound of rage and he suddenly reared up, jerking angrily at his lead rope and slamming his hooves against the side of the stall, hard.

The butler cast a quick glance toward the stable; then he turned abruptly and walked back toward the house, the moonlight glowing against his pate.

Colin watched the man until the darkness swallowed him up. He put a hand on Shareb’s neck, finding it hot and lathered. Something was going on, and he didn’t like the feel of it. Ariadne had had long enough to explain their situation to Maxwell, and the sooner they collected the animals—including the lovely mare, Gazella—and got the hell out of here, the better.

With Bow trotting at his heels, he strode determinedly out of the box stall and the stable, never hearing Shareb-er-rehh’s and Thunder’s desperate whinnying behind him.

Never heeding Marc’s attempts to wind himself around his feet and slow him down.

He reached the manor house and slammed his fist hard against the door. It opened, and the cadaverous butler stood there, smiling.

“Ah, Mr. Lord,” the old man said archly, his eyes gleaming through years of cataracts. “We were wondering where you’d gone—”

“I want to see Lady Ariadne.”

“But oh, she does not wish to see
you
.”

“I beg your pardon?”

The butler smiled malevolently. “I’m sorry, sir, but the lady has come to her senses following her temporary lapse in judgment. She has decided to honor her betrothal to my lord, after all.”